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Posts with tag immersion

All the World's a Stage: Sacrificing spells for the story

All the World's a Stage returns today to shine a brutal but loving eye on the intricacies of roleplay. We do this by looking at the craft of roleplay itself, and the people who love it. We might not be ready for Jerry Springer, but we're pretty sure this week's column is going to have a little debate behind it. Michael Gray fills in this week for David Bowers, and talks about letting roleplay exclude some other forms of play in the World of Warcraft.

We're not a big Guild. All told, we probably have about twenty to twenty five people who come online at various times to talk, chat, and play together. We have some structure, but we're mostly a motley of friends who hang out. Our raiding effort takes place because our raid leaders woke up one day and said "By Wrath of the Lich King, we're going to be able to progress in ten man content."

We're also a roleplay-ish kind of Guild. I say "ish" because we're not full immersion players. We have some light story notions. For example, I have the vague idea that our raid's main healer is the son of our raid's main tank -- that's mostly because they're the same human model, but one has light blonde hair, and the other has old, graying hair.

So, when we come across folks into the roleplay and immersion a little more than we are, we're sometimes not quite sure what to make of it.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Sacrificing spells for the story

All the World's a Stage: Pros and cons of total-immersion roleplay

When you decide to roleplay, a whole new world of imagination opens up to you -- soon you realize that all the World of Warcraft is a stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players.

There are degrees to roleplaying. Some people like it "light," so that it never gets too intense, you never have to actually "work" to make your character profound or lore-worthy, and it's generally just a fun way to pass some time. Others like it "heavy;" they view their characters as works of art, taking special care to make their characters believable and interesting, and sometimes planning special roleplaying events for their guild to enjoy. Some even try to do everything in-character, from repairing armor to marking out targets with raid symbols.

Recently I joined just such a full-immersion roleplaying guild, and have been trying out their particular style. To be fair, I still have a number of friends on my server that I usually speak out-of-character with, because that's what we're used to, but for everyone in this guild, I do my best to stay in character at all times, with everything my character says and does. To some this may seem like an unnecessary pain, but to others it's a fun experience. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages of this type of roleplaying.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Pros and cons of total-immersion roleplay

All the World's a Stage: Descriptions done right

All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening. Except for this week, when it is more like the early afternoon.

Your usual AtWaS columnist, David Bowers, has found himself a tad busy this weekend. Due to this, I'll be nosing in on his territory for a day. Don't worry ladies and gentlemen, I'll take good care of you. Just yesterday we discussed a little about RP descriptions. That is, the physical descriptions you can give your character via addons such as FlagRSP2 or MyRoleplay. David seemed to think this was a pretty good topic, so we're going to go a little more in depth into the right and wrong way of writing these.

Right and wrong in this case is naturally up to the individual, but in general there are some pretty solid guidelines you should keep in mind. The first and most obvious is that you should always proofread your writing. In general, roleplayers gravitate towards people with at least some grasp of the English language. A sloppily written description is the first thing someone will see, and it's going to set off alarms in the heads of other people.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: Descriptions done right

Azeroth Interrupted: Escape from Los Angeles



Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.

I love L.A. I really do. But there are times, like these, when I'm glad I'm a gamer and have a wide variety of ways to escape.

I don't know if you non-Angelenos know what I'm talking about. Our local news gets all silly when a few drops of water are planning to fall from the sky, so it's hard to gauge reality from hype. On the other hand, celebrities have had to flee their homes! So there's a good chance that our local wildfires caused by high winds and a long drought have caught more than just local attention.

I'm fine and my family's fine, but there are inconveniences and the air isn't so healthy and I just want to escape into my favorite game and relax. But I'm afraid that WoW is not going to provide the immersive experience I need right now. And I don't think it's Blizzard's fault, though there are some aspects of Azeroth that contribute to the problem.

It's the WoW players.

Continue reading Azeroth Interrupted: Escape from Los Angeles

Immersion in the story is just icing on the cake

Chris Metzen and Alex Afrasiabi discussed with players at BlizzCon their desire for the World of Warcraft to be more immersive, for the characters to be more believable and relevant, and for the story to be more at the forefront, right alongside gameplay.

So now a professional screenwriter named Cocles submitted a suggestion on the forums as to how that feeling could be created, by letting the world's characters react to you in a more believable way. Here's one of his examples:
Think of how immersive it would be if you were to step into Outland and have Nazgrel look at you and say, "When I sent word to Orgrimmar that we needed more troops, I never dreamed they would send the slayer of C'thun himself to aid us. You will be a great asset to us Cocles, and I am glad to see you here!"

Had I not killed C'thun, or done anything else of note, Nazgrel could instead look me up and down and say, "Well grunt, let's see what you're made of."
Check out Blizzard's response beyond the jump...

Continue reading Immersion in the story is just icing on the cake


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